No, it's not my fifty year wedding anniversary. It is my parents'. This past weekend we celebrated my parents' 50 year anniversary as well as 49 years in ministry. This was obviously a time of reflection for all of us. Given the task of "saying a few words" Sunday afternoon at the reception I tried to narrow it down to one meaningful word for each of them. So the question I asked myself was what one word best described each of them. Since you could not all be there, I thought I would share a bit of what I shared with the group gathered. For my mom I chose the word "wise". If you don't know my mom, she is the quiet one in the family. She has always been most comfortable behind the scenes and out of the spotlight. I almost chose the word "servant" because she never stops doing just that ... serving. But the word that came to mind most was "wise". Mom is one of the wisest people I know when it comes to relationships, which is the toughest area for most people to deal with in a wise manner. Mom always seem to have something wise to share with me growing up whenever I found myself struggling with a relationship.
For my dad I chose "faith". As I told the crowd Sunday afternoon, I have at times referred to it as "crazy faith". Dad's level of faith would cause some surrounding him over the years to think it to be irrational. When I was in junior high school (7-9 grades) Dad "resigned" his salary saying we were going to believe God to meet our needs. I could not understand how we were going to eat or buy clothes, but God did just as dad believed He would. We never missed a meal and we certainly never went without clothes :-). We lived "by faith" as a family for months, led by the faith of dad. Oh yeah, the whole time, the guy in charge of looking after the "gifts" given to our family during that time by faithful and caring church members was stealing from the account!! And God still provided.
Funny thing, when I take spiritual gift inventories, to this day two of the gifts that tend to rise to the top consistently are: wisdom and faith. I don't know this to be a fact and I don't find it in Scripture, but I have to wonder if somehow the spiritual gifts of the parents are somehow embedded into the children.
Congratulations again to my mom and dad (Sally and Carl Marshall) on this milestone.
3 comments:
thanks mark.
I love your idea that the spiritual gifts of the parents are passed on to the children. I would agree that you have inherited both wisdom and faith. I'm still waiting for MY inheritance.
Very nice tribute. I would have to concur with both words. Especially the "crazy faith." They're great folks and mean a lot to me and my family. Blessings.
Post a Comment